Absolutely, absurdly true. The D.C. metro is adding a new line, almost all of it will be above ground and on existing right-of-way reserved specifically for the eventual construction of the line decades ago and operate in fairly low density part of the system. It'll be 37km long and run $6.8 billion dollars. It'll have 29 stations.
Compare to the new Seoul Bundang line which is 32.8km with 28 stations in some of the most dense urban areas on the planet. It'll run a bit under $400 million to build or about 1/17th the cost.
Once open, it'll probably cost riders under a dollar for most trips, compared to over $3 on the DC Metro.
No matter how you figure it, cost of labor, eminent domain, legal, whatever, there's simply no way to figure the D.C. costs as making sense when a world away a similar line, in another developed country with far more difficult construction issues is much cheaper in every way possible.
Just an off-hand observation: Australia also has a common-law legal system, which TFA suggests correlates strongly positively with out-of-control prices on such projects.
After reading some of the other tabs I opened up looking for that article -- it appears that there was a bunch of other works bundled into the project. Still really expensive - but more than I had originally realised.
Compare to the new Seoul Bundang line which is 32.8km with 28 stations in some of the most dense urban areas on the planet. It'll run a bit under $400 million to build or about 1/17th the cost.
My parents live near the silver line, and it's ridiculously over-designed. This huge concrete highway in the sky, for what could have very easily been a pretty cheap metal raised framework.
Compare to the new Seoul Bundang line which is 32.8km with 28 stations in some of the most dense urban areas on the planet. It'll run a bit under $400 million to build or about 1/17th the cost.
Once open, it'll probably cost riders under a dollar for most trips, compared to over $3 on the DC Metro.
No matter how you figure it, cost of labor, eminent domain, legal, whatever, there's simply no way to figure the D.C. costs as making sense when a world away a similar line, in another developed country with far more difficult construction issues is much cheaper in every way possible.